About

NX is a remote access protocol. It is both fast, secure, graphical and open (as opposed to the Telnet protocol, which is only fast and open).

NX is basically a client-server protocol, that allows you to graphically access any machine, It is based on both (open)SSH (for security) and X Compression (for GUI and speed), and NX is much easier to use than normal X protocol.

Features

Allows you to connect remotely to your desktop, over a secure channel.

History

After NoMachine created NX a few years ago, they released their core libs and commandline tools to the public (as GPL). Kurt Pfeifle - a KDE contributor - took those libs and tools and created a first humble (unreleased) script that automated the setting up of a remote NX connection to a degree. After Kurt introduced Fabian Franz (at the time a contributor to Knoppix and MPlayer) to NX, Fabian created a project called FreeNX; FreeNX is a work-alike implementation of NoMachine's commercial (and closed source) NX Server.

We - the community - can use the GPL'ed implementation of the FreeNX server and the KDE "knx" client (though that one does still miss many features and lacks maintenance). A QT-based free/libre implementation of a NX session client "QtNX" is available, as well.

There's also the GPL-ed client for the 2X server (another commercial product by a different company that uses the NX core libs) that is supposed to work with FreeNX.